Posted
by
michael
on Monday January 05, 2004 @12:10AM
from the gladly-the-cross-eyed-bear dept.

An anonymous reader writes "NASA has made the first stereo image pairs from Spirit available. I've made stereo anaglyphs and arranged the full-size images side-by-side for stereo viewing. These are from the low-res black and white hazard avoidance camera, but still very cool. Anxiously awaiting the first stereo pairs from the panoramic cameras!"

That's because the high-gain antenna wasn't deployed until last night, and these pictures were sent before then.

Anaglyphs aren't generally done in color anyway -- it can work but only with certain "neutral" tones that are the same brightness through both red and green/cyan cellophane used in 3D glasses -- because the colors in the color photo can interfere with the anaglyphic process and skew the brain's perception of the 3D effect. Color pictures of Mars are a no-no - you DO NOT use images of red or green/blue objects or you'll ruin the effect entirely as one eye will see the red/blue objects much more brightly than the other. For this reason, Sports Illustrated Magazine's special issue for the Olympics a few years ago ran an apology for not having any anaglyphic shots of the Chinese athletes... because they wore red uniforms.

Step one in the process I use to make anaglyphs: Strip out color (convert to greyscale). I work in an electron microscopy research lab and we process nearly everything into anaglyph format, so I do this all the time. You can fiddle with the gamma/brightness/contrast all you want, but color is a no-no. This means that when I make my own color anaglyphs (with better alignment than the ones linked in the article) -- looking forward to the high-res shots -- the color goes poof before ANYTHING else gets done to the images.

I always thought the letting-your-eyes-relax (vergence movement) so that the two images overlap binocularly (a la random dot stereograms) WAS the cross-eyed approach. But you seem to describe it as the "parallel approach" Can you elaborate?

Yeah, I always thought that too! The interesting thing about this set of images and that once you can see the parallel images in 3D you can look over a bit and see the cross-eyed images as well, and they're inverted 3D. (furthest point closest.) Seeing that made me realize the difference between the two techniques: the ordering of the images. In the parallel technique I think the proper image is going to each eye (right to right, left to left), but in the cross-eyed approach it's reversed. (I think, anyway,

If you put your finger 3 inches from your eyes, and stare at it, your eyes will look and feel crossed. That's how it will sorta feel if you do the cross-eyed method. If you stare far away, say, at a distant landmark, your eyes do the opposite of crossing, they spread out. This is sorta how parallel feels.

For more detail, the parallel is where your left eye looks at the left image, and your right eye looks at the right image (which is why they call it parallel, if you were to draw lines from your eyes to the picture they're looking at, you'd have to parallel lines).

The cross-eyed is the opposite. If you were to draw lines from eyes to picture, you'd see them cross.

In my opinion, cross-eyed method is easiest. If you can cross you eyes on two images, and you have enough eye control to force one "phantom" image to lay on top of another "phantom" image (from your other eye), bingo, it'll automatically work. It also has the nice bonus of being able to "touch" what you see. It also lets you cross-eye stuff many many inches apart, while parallel only lets you do maybe 3 inches max.

Most people preferentially free fuse cross-eyed: the right eye focuses on the left-hand image and vice versa. Some people, however, can free fuse in parallel: the right eye focuses on the right-hand image, the left eye on the left-hand image. Colleagues of mine who could do both told me that parallel fusion gave them less of a headache than cross fusion.

I'm going to gauchely reply to myself and say you must be right....doing the magic eye style reconvergence thing looks MUCH better on the second and third images (makes more optical "sense") -- the ones the page descibes as intended for "parallel approach" viewing---than on the first two, which the page describes as intended for "cross-eyed approach" viewing. I must have had my L/R info switched. And, on introspection, it makes sense that magic eye approach involves refocusing past the plane of the pictu

Thanks for that link [vision3d.com]. It has taught me how to view cross eyed stereograms. It is a little wobbly and out of focus for me at first, but after about 5-10 seconds (and getting shorter with practice) the images come into focus and I get a nice 3d image.

I prefer the parallel viewing method. However that method has an built in weakness. Images can only have a separation of about 50-60mm. Wider than that, and the eyes have to look beyond parallel. The cross eyed version does not have this weakness.

Most people already KNOW how to read those pictures by looking 'at infinity' making their eyes see in parallel directions. It's a simple concept. The problem is that it's not actually phyisically possible for many people, myself included. The problem is that there often is NO way for them to put the aim of their eyeballs under conscious control. Those muscles can't be moved directly like a bicep can. For some of us, those muscles are involuntary. We just think "I want to look, *there*, and some low-l

I'm extremely nearsighted but I can't make the 'parallel' method work, glasses on or off. On the other hand, I can make all the "cross-eyed' pairs work, including the last ones that are supposed to be too big for that.

Go with the cross-eyed approach, if you can get it to work for you. I never liked the red/blue glasses method. I tried that too... but the colors just ruin it for me. The cross-eyed method is pretty cool once you get your eyes to focus on it.

Everytime I look at those new images, I can't help but just think how simple it would be to just send a craft over there and do a maned mission.

Surly it would be a lot easer then for sailers to sail around the world in the 1500s in comparison today. I think the technology is there, all we need is some human drive with those willing to risk their own life. Of course, the US...which based all of our major achivements is based on risk. But now days, the mere thought of death will totally can a project.

Personally, I would love to take a trip to mars. To hell with the "risks". To me, it would be worth it!!

A one way trip I am sure would be do-able. Leaving out the "get back home" part makes things MUCH more simple. However, even if the line of volunteers was a mile long, todays policitally correct enviornment and would not let the brave souls make the trip. I think NASA should throw the idea of a "one-way mission to Mars(TM) in three years" into the news and see what happens.

A risk is inherent in such a task, there are problems making it a manageable risk and what levels are acceptable. 90%? 10%? 50%? 1%? People can complain about the possibility that the project would only kill people purely by trying this. People die all the time, and while not doing interesting things. I'd just like to know what the benefits will be.

Making sure that someone can get there, without being irradiated, with enough food to last the round trip (or one way, and send the return trip food ahea

Imagine if Beagle 2 was a manned mission. We'd sure as hell at least know what happened. And the majority of failed mars missions have failed because there was something wrong that couldn't be fixed by remote. If there was someone on hand to reach over and tweak the long-range antenna, I'm positive the percantage of successful missions would be much higher.

The trip to Mars is childs play compared to the longest Human durration on Mir. Valeriy Polyakov spent 483 days in that tin can between January 1994 and March 1995. And your going to tell me it can't be done!!!

And don't give me that Emotional stability crap. I've heard of submariners spend more time underwater. And they mind you, are doing just fine.

You do realize, don't you, that people sailed around the world in the 16th Century. On a regular basis. Not all of them made it. Many died. On each voyage. We didn't know how to desalinate water then. We didn't have radio then. Hell, we didn't know about sanitation then. Doctors didn't wash their hands for another 300 years still. Even a simple thing like vitamin C to prevent scurvy was centuries off...

But still people did it. They explored. Because they know the long term payoff was there. And that there were willing souls ready to go now... and that the rewards and the victory go to the strong and the brave. The timid sit back and let others collect.

...or do you think the Chinese are faking it when they say they are going to the moon by 2020? Do you think they aren't planning to go to Mars and mine the astroids? This is China, where millions have been displaced in the last few years -- entire cities moved -- for a DAM that is being built... today! You don't think they plan ahead? Shouldn't we?

Rome faltered when it got soft. It became brittle. The people were interested in bloody spectacles... infighting and political intrigue took over in the Senate. Then Barbarians with a different religion attacked -- Of course Rome could always defeat them -- but again and again they attacked until finally the capital fell.

Just a random historical bit of trivia to throw at the end of my rant... It wasn't supposed mean anything...or maybe it was. Look, all I know is that someone from our generation needs to start inspiring people. Let's go to Mars and stop worrying so much, OK? Humanity NEEDS this and people are tougher than you think.

Nice idea, Bruce Dern. However, all attempts so far to create a self-contained and self-sustaining biosphere have failed.

You think the ISS is expensive, try building the vehicle large enough for a biosphere and having it survive the acceleration needed to get to Mars within a decade...

Other than that, I agree that a manned flight would have a higher success rate than a robotic one due to real-time correctional ability. However, the initial steps of maintaining the human cargo have yet to be addressed

Ask yourself this question... the people who go on Fear Factor... the people who fly solo across Antarctica... the people who sail across the Pacific alone, with no radio... I bet most of them are in pretty great shape. I bet you could get 1000 of them to volunteer for a manned Mars mission in 2006 in a heartbeat. I bet out of that 1000 -- these are people who climb mountains and run triathalons, remember -- at least 50 or 100 of the candidates would be able to pass a training program and be "able" to fly to Mars. Especially if we build our ships right -- let the machines and the computers do most the work and train these people to do what they already get off on doing: surviving.

When they're there -- they can take pictures of the rocks the mission wants, take the soil samples of the areas the mission asks... things space agencies spend billions for each primitive 100 kg. robot to do one time... Why not instead send out tens of manned missions? Do it right. And sure, we might lose 1 trip out of 3. More at first. I bet ANY of these people would be MORE than willing to go... AND you'd be saving money!!! Tons of money. The first crew that arrived successfully... think of it. Think of the presige. The honor of having your name go down as that man or woman in history? And think of all the experiments they we perform with PEOPLE there... Just imagine! And if they were to arrive home... what it could do for the world...

Does this sound brutal? To me it feels visionary -- it makes just so much common sense; why don't people ever spell it out like this? Let people freely decide if they are willing to take that risk. Here we are, legalizing assisted suicide across the Western world but we don't have the balls to let adventurers sign up for one of the last ULTIMATE adventures???

Hmm. I submitted my own 3-D composites, but mine were rejected and these accepted. But if you'd like to see more of Mars in 3-D, my own stereoscopic pairs are posted here on Re:zine [rezine.org] (Sunday, Jan. 4th, 'Mars In 3-D!'). The last of the four is artificially colorized using color samples from previous Mars expedition photos. Enjoy!

The Pathfinder/Sojourner mission only had enough energy (they thought) for 7 days of activity on mars, so they planned a tight, fast mission and hurried everything very quickly to make use of the very limited energy. Sojourner landed on Mars on July 4, 1997, and these images [sgi.com] were returned to Earth that same day. Of course, the energy supply turned out to last well longer than the planned mission, so the mission was extended. (The last data successfully retrieved from Sojourner was on Sept. 26, 1997.)

Spirit is an entirely different story. The images we've seen so far are just from positioning/navigation cameras which only image in b&w. But I believe the first color images from the high-res, color cameras are due to reach us any time now. We should have high-res color pics sometime today.

Spirit has far better batteries, lots more energy, and a much longer mission schedule. Where Sojourner was expected to run for just 7 days, Spirit and Opportunity are expected to run for 90 days. The mission schedules this time are more deliberate and meticulous.

Today Spirit is going to begin to put down it's wheels and "stand up." But that whole process with take two days. And it won't actually roll off the pad and onto Martian soil until the 9th or 10th day after the landing.

So just have patience. We should see the first color pictures today, and Spirit will start puttering around the surface by the middle of next week.

Failure to provide instant gratification isn't a sign of general failure, nor an indicator of conspiracy.;)

If you have an nvidia card with the latest 3D stereo drivers you can run 3D LCD shutter glasses (assuming your monitor can run ~120 hz or better) and view JPS images in "real" 3D. All JPS images are are 2 JPGs side by side which the viewer splits in half and displays one half at a time per screen refresh.

I've made a few of my own JPS images simply by taking two pictures with my digital camera a few centimeters offset and combining the two resulting JPGs into one JPS file.

Developers might also want to check out Open SceneGraph [sourceforge.net] which has the ability to automatically output your game/flight sim/visualisation project in stereo at the flick of an environment variable.

Okay, where can I get some blue and red 3D glasses in this day and age? Preferably some big retail store so I don't have to go through mail order. Does someone know of a cheap book at Borders or Barnes and Noble with a pair of glasses in them?

Okay, where can I get some blue and red 3D glasses in this day and age?

The August 1998 issue of National Geographic came with two pairs, ironically enough to view stereo images as taken by NASA's last successful Mars lander, Pathfinder.

That's what I used to view the current images. So if you know someone with a National Geographic collection dating back that far you can borrow them, or if you're really keen you can head down to your local library, find the issue in question (hopefully with at least one pair of the glasses still inside), take it to an available library internet terminal, bring up the page in question, and view away.

So if you know someone with a National Geographic collection dating back that far you can borrow them, or if you're really keen you can head down to your local library, find the issue in question (hopefully with at least one pair of the glasses still inside), take it to an available library internet terminal, bring up the page in question, and view away.

This camera undoubtably has a set of filters on it which permit it to image in a variety of wavelengths. Color images will come, they will take individual red, green, blue exposures and combine them. They can probably image all the way from near ultraviolet to low infrared.

Nav pictures need to come back quickly and accurately over a very slow link, just in case. And the quality needs to be enough to navigate by, and no more. (cause more quality = longer transmission times, thus less photos to nav by). Don't worry, the high quality color cams will be really fantastic when they get going. One thing at a time.

Judging by the way they "hurt" to focus on
(I can usually do stereograms with little
difficulty), I'd guess these result from
the camera rotating about an axis behind
the field of view (thus making them
divergent rather than convergent pairs). But
do they at least match the human 6.5cm separation,
or something radically different?

sad thing is that the guy that made the website did a better job of the one that hit the headlines.

The poster is getting credit for First stereogram pairs when someone else got their first.( I made the first one posted on slashdot) and the other guy made more images, a website and an article first but got rejected...

Just FYI, and in a similar vein, when Pathfinder landed in 1999 I made a page with stereo pairs of the landing area (using images from Viking). Some of the hills, craters, etc., are pretty breathtaking when viewed in 3-D.
Pathfinder landing site in 3-D [brenthugh.com]
Some interesting views taking from the Pathfinder lander, in stereo are here [stereoscopy.com].
--B

I had found a page of the raw images from Spirit earlier today, and every picture from the rover was one of a pair -- it makes sense, because all the cameras are stereo cameras. It was really quite interesting to see the images in 3D as it showed that the ground has gently rolling hills (dune-like) and is not nearly as uniformly flat as it appears in the monocular images.

Note that the cameras are about a foot apart in most cases, about 5 times the spacing between your eyes, so the 3D is exaggerated by the same amount (alternatively, you can think that it makes the world look 5 times as small.) It's amazing what the third dimension gives you.

Sadly, the amount of JPEG compression on these early images adds a huge amount of noise, that isn't apparent in the single images but makes the stereo pair look very noisy indeed. One would hope that once the high-gain antenna is configured, they can start sending far less compressed images.

... that you can see the extent to which the airbags are still inflated, and get a sense of which egress route is better than others. At least one of those airbags is still quite puffed up.

I prefer the parallel images to the cross-eyed ones. Crossing your eyes just hurts, but relaxing them and focusing them offscreen doesn't at all, you can do it forever practically if you can get a lock on the right amount to relax.

The cross-eyed pairs are where your left eye looks at the right picture and your other eye looks at the left picture. On the linked story page, these are the two left-most images.

I think the parallel stereograms (left image->left eye, right image->right eye) are easier and more comfortable to view because there is less perspective distortion as each eye can be directly in front of the part it needs to see. The two center images on the page make a parallel stereo pair. To view these, just look at some imaginary point several feet behind your display. When you do this, everything close to you will appear in double. Relax your eyes and adjust them so the two stereo images converge (you may have to tilt your head a little to get them perfectly horizontal). When the images overlap enough, your eyes will automatically "lock on" and a glorious patch of 3D will appear!

Can anyone explain the difference between parallel and cross eyed stereo vision?

For the parallel ones, you use your left eye to look at the picture on the left and your right eye to look at the picture on the right. Since normally, both eyes look at the same place, you need to let your eyes drift apart.

For the crosseyed ones, you use your left eye to look at the picture on the right and your right eye to look at the picture on the left. I.e., you cross your eyes slightly.

that thinks mars looks kinda boring? It really just looks like desert or something. It would be nice if the photo's were color so you could get some feeling of what it really looks like. On the plus side, maybe Nasa will get a picture of that Beagle rover that crashed or whatever.

The first images are not very good ones to start with. I suggest browsing down to the first set of images that do not have parts of the rover in them (a set of small hills on the horizon). Also, try resizing the browser so that only the two images you are trying to combine are in view and place the browser on a plain background such as a reasonably uncluttered desktop. Try both the cross-eyed and parallel set of images if you do not know your method - you'll know when you have it right because there will

I believe the original poster is mistaken, or I'm not seeing it. The little square images are parts of the mosaic which comprise the panorama. They are NOT taken with the stereo camera as far as I can tell.

You're right, you're just not looking hard enough. Or maybe you went to the nasa link, where they're not so well arranged. The little images ARE the ones that were assembled into a panorama. The link to the guy's site has them all organized into stereo pairs (I assume they just used all left or all right to make the pan).

The pairs are arranged like this:

(Right Cam) (Left Cam) (Right Cam) (red/blue)

You can cross your eyes and look at the first two, or use cardboard tubes and look at the second two,

I've been poking around for hours trying to find photos, information, etc., and realized that it's very hard to find the good stuff, but that a LOT of it is out there.
So I made this page (address below) and will continue to maintain it. It has (among other things) links to:

In fact, all but the bottom ones are from the Navigation cameras, which sit on top of the mast as well, just inside of the Hi-Res Panorama Camera. The Nav Cam has a resolution of 512x512, but these pictures were taken with 256x256. The Panorama Cam has a resolution of 1024x1024.

Any new pictures of the Martian landscape are very cool, but I have to question the choice of the landing site. Gusev Crater may be very interesting in a macro sense, it probably contains lacustrine sediments. But are these sediments accessable to the rover which has landed in the middle of a featureless plain? I doubt it. It is more likely that it will just sample the ubiquitous dust and rock ejecta, again. There may be no significant exposures of the stratigraphic section nearby. When will one of these missions truely explore the fantastic landscape revealed from orbit?

I had mine. Came with a DVD I got on Mars. Although, the red/blue 3D method sucks royally! Never liked it. The best 3D glasses I've seen are the polarized ones that I first saw in Captain EO at Disney Land.

Even the "color" cameras are black and white. They have nifty color wheels that rotate over them, and the unit takes pictures in succession to get the red, green, blue, IR, and several other shades i'm nor sure of.

Why do they do it this way? With the exception of the relatively new Foveon CCDs, "color" digital still and video cameras work in one of two ways-- 3 CCDs and a prism that splits the colors off to each CCD, or 1 CCD that has a grid of R, G, or B pixels arranged in blocks like this: